Bookclub miscellany

August

I just finished reading Howard's End. WHAT an interesting book. I'm really glad Zelda chose it, and really sorry we won't be discussing it sooner. Maybe I'll use the time to try to learn more about the author, or read some criticism or something. Hopefully I'll also be able to look through it before we meet again. In the meantime, though, I also have my eye on

September

for which we are reading The Devil Wears Prada. Since I was within an inch of choosing this myself, I am again grateful to Vivian for having beat me to it. I've been looking around for supplementary reading, but all I've found so far is Jerry Oppenheimer's Front Row: Anna Wintour, The Cool Life and Hot Times of Vogue's Editor in Chief, and In and Out of Vogue by Wintour's predecessor (or, as some might say, the woman whose job she stole). There are also a few books that Wintour herself has contributed to, and you can watch some interviews with her on the Charlie Rose web site. However, in the spirit of making everything flow smoothly, I am also looking at

October

which is my pick, and that pick is Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons. It is funny (hoorah!), not a memoir (all right!), relatively modern (always thinking of you, Lesley), and has been adapted for TV several times, so there should be a version we can watch on DVD if we're so inclined. Although I think it's a good idea to have read it first, because some of the characters speak in such heavy accents that it's nice to have the general idea of what they're saying ahead of time. This book is clearly a satire of a certain genre of British literature where farmers and rural inhabitants lead lives of squalid desperation, and it might have been nice to read a few of those books so as to appreciate the humor more, but who has time, really? It's actually very funny just on its own.

The ball's in your court now, Lesley.